Quick look at the HN front page via the ihackernews.com API

hacker_news_api.rb

require "net/http"
require "uri"
require "json"

class Story
  @@stories = []
  @@endpoint = URI.parse("http://api.ihackernews.com/page")
  @@fetched_at = nil

  attr_accessor :title, :url, :id, :commentCount, :points, :postedAgo, :postedBy
  
  def initialize(attrs={})
    for key in attrs.keys
      method = "#{key}=".to_sym
      send(method, attrs[key]) 
    end
    @@stories << self
  end
  
  class << self
    def fetch
      if response = JSON.parse(Net::HTTP.get(@@endpoint))
        @@fetched_at = Time.now
        response["items"].each { |item| new(item) }
      end
      true if fetched?
    end
  
    def fetched_at
      @@fetched_at
    end
  
    def all
      @@stories
    end
    
    def count
      all.length
    end
  
    def at_rank(index)
      all[index-1]
    end
  
    def find(id)
      all.each { |story| return story if story.id == id }
    end
  
    def where(conds={})
      matches = []
      for story in all
        match = true
        for key in conds.keys
          match = false unless story.send(key) == conds[key]
        end
        matches << story if match == true
      end
      matches
    end
  end
  
private

  def self.fetched?
    !!fetched_at
  end
end

#################
# Example usage #
#################

Story.fetch

puts "total stories: #{Story.count}"
puts "fetched at: #{Story.fetched_at}"
puts "top story: #{Story.at_rank(1).title}"
puts "\n"
puts "max points: #{mp = Story.all.map(&:points).max}"
puts "story w/ max points: #{Story.where(:points => mp).first.title}"
puts "max comment count: #{mc = Story.all.map(&:commentCount).max}"
puts "story w/ max comment count: #{Story.where(:commentCount => mc).first.title}"